Candice Dale, a Portland resident, lives part time on Long Island.

The birds in our front yard take turns at the two feeders — a yellow finch, a chickadee, a
cardinal, sometimes a bluebird. I watch the elegant dance of two whirling hummingbirds who return each day to suck the sugar water hanging off a feeder on the front porch column.

We humans also share on the island: our fresh grown tomatoes, our zucchini, books we’ve just finished, a power tool, clipped blossoms from a deep blue hydrangea bush.

We make potluck meals with friends, share music at the VFW on the hill, bring in guest speakers to expand our horizons. And each night we fall asleep peacefully to the ringing of the bell buoys in the Hussey Sound and the slapping of the waves on the sandy beaches.

Several hundred people live together on this island year-round. This number grows to close to 1,200 when unheated cottages fill up during the warmer months from May to October.

We all come to Long Island with different histories, different politics, different skill sets; and yet, we find a way to work together, year-rounders and summer people, to support a rich island life.

We share photos of stunning sunsets and sunrises on Facebook. We participate in town meetings to find ways to promote workforce housing, to preserve a working waterfront, to support a vibrant small library, to keep the small elementary school open with the dwindling student population (only four students this fall).

Road races, sand castle contests, July Fourth parades, Bake House Trivia evenings and morning coffee at the Boat House Store bring us together to share our stories.

Each day the angst and noise of our troubled country worry me, and I grow afraid of tomorrow for my children and grandchildren, for our communities, for our democracy. I feel as tense and uncertain as I did during the pandemic just five years ago. I wonder how we will climb out of this chaos and stop the bitter, ugly fighting of our political leaders.

I have already lost one old friend over differences of opinion during this past year, and it makes us both feel sad. Daily I walk around the island to calm my mind, to try to understand the divide in our nation. Why does community seem possible to build on a small island but not nationally?

Each time I walk, I find peace in the sight of a blue heron, a small turtle on a lily pad, an osprey couple caring for their young in a nest built high on an abandoned wharf piling. Today on my walk the island schoolchildren and their teacher invited my friend and me to join their morning meeting as they gathered on the lawn of the playground.

Each child gave a thumbs up or down about the morning mood and shared one weekend adventure. I found it easy to share my own positive thoughts. I joined them in saying aloud the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag hanging on a pole outside the small schoolhouse, not remembering the last time I pledged “liberty and justice for all.”

One young boy suggested that we sing “Yankee Doodle Dandy” before returning to the classroom, and I joined in. The children’s laughter and bright Monday morning smiles assured me that we will survive.

On this small, independent island, it is possible to listen to one another and to work together to find solutions to community challenges.

Of course, it’s not always easy (an offensive political sign, a thoughtless word at a public hearing, a misunderstanding with a neighbor), but for the most part, people know and care for one another and want to work together to improve our island way of living.

It is easier to dismiss someone who disagrees with us if he or she lives thousands of miles away or talks to us through a television screen. It’s harder to grow angry with a neighbor whom you’ll see again on the morning ferry or at the island store when you need more milk.

I haven’t found complete relief from my fears about our world falling apart, but during the months I live on Long Island from late spring through summer to early fall, my faith grows that we Americans can find a better way to talk about our differences and to live together in harmony.

We can listen carefully to our neighbors, step up to become involved in community problem solving, and walk often so we can to learn from our natural surroundings about how to grow and how to let go and how to find faith in tomorrow.